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This infographic comes to us from the folks at MyWeather.com.

I really liked learning the facts shown in this infographic. It also has a nice fall feel, with the dark gray of the clouds and the deep orange of pumpkins and fall leaves. The “ash-tonishing” pun is pretty cute, and so is the stick figure leaping into the pile of leaves.

This infographic would really benefit from data visualization. There is one example on the infographic: the 1.3 hamburgers burned by raking leaves for 60 minutes are actually shown. All the other facts are sort of illustrated without really being applied to a graphic (like the big weight reading 10,000 tons–it could easily be changed to 10 weights each reading 1,000 tons, or the entire infographic could be taken up by 10,000 weights each reading 1 ton… maybe don’t take it that far, though). As for the 20 cities that have banned leafblowers… 20 stick figures with leafblowers and 20 policemen yelling? That sort of thing really livens up an infographic and takes the power away from the words, putting it where it belongs–with the graphics.

It will also thin out the text a little if the sources were listed at the bottom, instead of being worked into the facts. For example, one fact reads, “The Seattle Times reports that a 24-inch leaf rake suits most people.” That can easily be changed to “24 inches: the ideal leaf rake length,” which is nearly half the amount of words. The fewer words, the better. Infographics are about seeing the data, not reading it. Furthermore, this lets you list the URL–right now, it would be difficult to find that information.

This infographic does tell a nice story though, and it has a certain visual appeal in its complete simplicity. The lack of data viz is unfortunate, but without it I give this infographic a D. It’s cute, but it might as well be a web page as opposed to an infographic.